French people spend more time alone in front of their screens

In 2010, television remained the most widely watched type of screen in metropolitan France (mainland + Corsica), at an average three hours a day versus three-quarters of an hour for the home computer. Time spent watching television has increased significantly in twenty-five years, but has been broadly stable for the past ten. In the same interval, computer and Internet use has grown substantially. Retired and jobless persons are still the categories that watch television the most, whereas the youngest age groups are those that spend the most time in front of a computer. Manual and clerical workers watch television more than managerial workers and the professions. The latter categories, which include a higher proportion of computer owners, use computers more than manual workers. Increasingly, people watch television alone. There are two explanations for this trend. First, more people are now living alone. Second, the number of television sets per household has increased, the range of programmes available has diversified, and access to programmes on “new screens” via the Internet is expanding. All these changes are reducing the family dimension of television consumption.